1. Field of the Invention
The invention is generally related to industrial furnaces and particularly to the floor tube supports in such furnaces.
2. General Background
In industrial furnaces such as those used by utilities, heat exchange tubes which form the walls and floor carry a liquid that serves as a heat exchange medium. The tubes must be protected from cracking or crushing in order to operate efficiently. Slag particles carried in the hot furnace gases collect on the exposed surfaces in the upper furnace and, eventually, fall onto the floor tubes of the furnace. Even though furnace floors generally are sloped to shed slag and other deposits, the impact and weight of the slag has damaged or crushed the floor tubes in certain furnaces. Such furnaces have the problem of having rigid mountings for the floor tubes that force the tubes to absorb the impact and weight of the slag. This leads to support truss and tube damage, reduced operating efficiency, and the need for outages to make repairs and install new materials which also will be subject to damage. This results in a need in such furnaces for floor tube mountings that will prevent damage to the floor tubes and support trusses by absorbing the impact and weight of falling slag and that are replaceable at less cost than that of the heat exchange tubes.